Water again flowing at Red Slough on Pitt River, says First Nation

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An important salmon habitat in the Upper Pitt River that had become choked by logging road construction a century ago is once again flush with freshwater.

The Katzie First Nation and the B.C. Parks Foundation announced Tuesday the completion of the Red Slough restoration project, one of the largest projects to restore healthy salmon habitat in Western Canada.

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The project began several years ago after the water turned a rust colour — a sign of low oxygen — and members of the Katzie First Nation found fish belly up. A minimum water flow is needed to allow the salmon to find their natural spawning habitats, say experts.

It then got a major boost in 2021 when B.C. Parks Foundation purchased and protected 295 hectares  in the Upper Pitt River watershed with a major donation from Lightspeed founder Dax Dasilva and his charity Age of Union.

Funding has also come from the World Wildlife Fund, the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

“This is a very special moment,” Rick Bailey, a councillor for Katzie First Nation, said Tuesday. “My highest priority as a councillor is fish and wildlife. Because here at Katzie First Nation, we refer to the salmon as family. They’re part of our family.”

Bailey said the work included putting in a culvert with a team of biologists and fishery experts to restore water flow that was cut off by construction on a logging road.

It’s believed now that the water is flowing, salmon will once again thrive. However, there are other contributing factors in salmon mortality, including overfishing, industry, and the effects of human-caused climate change such as drought and heat waves.

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For more than 100 years, this part of the Upper Pitt River had been severed from its natural course in reaching Pitt Lake, the largest freshwater tidal lake in the world, according to a news release from the B.C. Parks Foundation Tuesday.

Cutting off the water meant stagnant water channels, dying salmon, and depleted wildlife in hundreds of hectares of prime salmon spawning habitat near Vancouver.

“The Red Slough is naturally rich in iron, and without freshwater flushes, the returning spawning fish often face low-oxygen conditions that significantly increase the risk of death,” said Tse-Lynn Loh, manager of land stewardship for B.C. Parks Foundation, in a statement.

“The area was choked off, gasping for life, but you could just feel the potential for it to be an absolute salmon factory if we could get water back into it,” added Andy Day, the foundation’s CEO.

The restoration project is the type of work the WWF Canada highlighted in a report last year as being vital to meet Canada’s 30 X 30 biodiversity targets.

This target — agreed upon at the COP 15 biodiversity summit in Montreal in 2022 — aims to protect 30 per cent of all land and water by 2030. B.C. has also pledged the same.

Protecting Earth’s biodiversity is linked to climate change mitigation efforts to restore balance in nature.

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